Gunmen take 200+ student hostages

[CrackerJack 0]

This maybe a bit of offtopic, but I had a teacher in Social studies who once said: Every day you work on your field, making food for your wife and children, then one day when you are on the field a enemy (american, russian chinese or whatever) bomb plane, probably by misstake drops a bomb on your house killing your whole familiy. When a man expiriences that then there is no way telling what he is going to do.

[Tovarish 0]

Raiders' deadly dispute - Band clashed over tactics

Quote[/b] ]MOSCOW -- Guerrillas behind the horrific slaughter at the middle school in Beslan in southern Russia appear to have planned their operation meticulously, starting months earlier and sneaking weapons into the building in advance. However, the attack's planners may not have considered psychology.

Umar Sikoyev, a lawyer for a captured militant identified as Nur-Pashi Kulayev, said the band's leader did not tell them what their mission was and that after the seizure a fierce argument broke out in the band, with several objecting that taking children as hostages was wrong.

The raid's commander shot the dissidents' leader to death and then used remote control to detonate the suicide belts worn by two women raiders to establish order in the band, Sikoyev said.

Pieces of the picture of how more than 1,000 hostages were taken at the school -- and where more than 300 died -- were falling into place, mainly from news reports citing unspecified but presumably official sources.

Officials were saying little publicly. Sergei Ignatchenko, a spokesman for the Federal Security Service, declined to immediately respond to questions from AP yesterday.

But the reports portray the raid as a fastidiously prepared operation, in which militants used renovation work as a cover to plant arms and explosives in the school -- almost literally under authorities' noses.

School No. 1 in Beslan, which the guerrillas seized Wednesday, is only about 200 metres from the local police department headquarters.

[DracoPaladore 0]

Your sneaking weapons into a school and planning on seizing it.

And you didn't know you wern't going to take hostages? I mean, if you're going to take a school, it would seem pretty obvious of what your leaders intentions are.

[Tovarish 0]

yep, plus this is coming from the defense lawyer of one of the captured militants.

[Balschoiw 0]

There´s rumour spreading that the incident wasn´t started by russian special forces but now they say that after the detonation they phoned with the terrorists and agreed on a cease fire.

Now starts the funny part. They say that fathers of pupils fired with their rifles from buildings around and started the firefight.

Excuse me ?

EXCUSE ME ?!?

I´ve seen it on TV and as soon as the detonation occured there was automatic gunfire to be heard and there were immedeate firefights of special forces and terrorists.

Rifle-fire from houses would have sounded very different.

And at least the question remains:

Why haven´t these houses been evacuated within the 3 days.

I mean it´s the first and most important thing to seal of the area of a scene like that in a way I have explained a few pages ago.

Why hasn´t this been done ?

That´s just...extremely stupid.

Imagine a terrorist stting in a house overwatching the scene and calling Ali on handy to keep him informed...I mean that´s just so stupid that I can´t believe that the houses should have been crowded with shooters !

What the hell were they doing there ?

*shakes ran*

[billybob2002 0]

On NBC, they interviewed two bros. and they talked about their experience. They had to drink their own pee because the water was turned off (by the terrorist?) and the terrorists told them to do it. The terrorists used the same chant that stereotypical terrorist do. Also, they talked about how certain men (hostages) were murdered in the hallway(?). Also, NBC showed the "edited" (cut) videotape. Those people were packed in that gym. "Blood" on the floor, and showed one of the terrorist "testing" a detonator with a child right near him scared. Anyway, what the hell is the point of taking a school hostage? You are not going to gain some friends.

[Balschoiw 0]

You can fuel anger at the administration in any way. This can lead to local uprisings and maybe a spreading wave of anti russian violence or russian-chechen violence. This war can fuel local interests to motivate other for a split of russia and a lot of more separate states. That´s what it was meant for in my opinion. And if you turn on the TV you can see that there is opposition to Putin now while a lot of Russians hope for a military strike on Chechnia, a major strike. So they have already achieved two goals.

Putin has cancelled his trip to germany , told the other countries to shut up. I guess this could have been the start of a big crisis.

[SpongeBob 0]

I just seen video of inside the school gym while the terrorist and children were hold up in there.  There was a dude standing on a detonator, if he was shot or lifted his foot off it, the charges that were hanging crisscrossing 6-10 feet over the gym would blow.  There also seem to be a blood trail on the floor of the gym, as if they dragged a body away.

[bn880 5]

I saw it as well, and there were a bunch of wire triggers around the doors and walls, + ceiling/roof I believe. So, what the heck do you do in this situation? Negotiate. Unfortunately I think this was not how the Chechens planned it, and of course not how the Russians wanted it.

[llauma 0]

Why bring a camera if you plan to blow up everything? They also tried to escape once the explosion occured.. I'm not saying that taking hostages is okay but I feel that this disaster could have been avoided if Russia would have played the cards right. It was a really touch situation for Russia as they could only loose whatever they decided to do. Negotiation was the only possible option to avoid bloodshed but Russia would never had given up anything to meet the terrorists demands.

This situation didn't occur out of the blue.. It's the reaction to the actions Russia has decided to take. We see the same thing in every country that uses violance to get rid of the terrorists, USA(incl. Iraq and Afghanistan), Israel and Russia. Spain got hit by an terrorist attack but once they brought home the troops they have been spared from new attacks. Some might see that as a sign of weakness but in my view it's a sign of strength to be able to put down the guard and trust your enemy. That shouldn't be too hard when you fight an enemy you can't beat. Continuing a impossible fight is just stupid especially when to price is measured in civilian lives.

[bn880 5]

You know, I am not so sure the Russians did not play their cards right in this situation (unless I'm out of touch, possibly), it was really a screwup/coincidence that all this happened, and you can't blame starving/halucinating hostages for freaking out.

I don't beleive for a second that the explosions by the chechens near the end were premeditated/planned to occur then, they did not even do all the damage they could, it was a screwup.

[AKM74. 0]

Quote[/b] ]There´s rumour spreading that the incident wasn´t started by russian special forces but now they say that after the detonation they phoned with the terrorists and agreed on a cease fire.

I surprise you just notice it. All this was told but many hostages 2 days ago. If you using European new/media as source of information’s, I’m not wonder, they to busy filming dead bodies. Anything else not important, like always.

Alpha was not present on the scene in a time of explosion. They arrive when “freedom fighters†start to shoot escaping (well, there is not many of hostages survive after explosion) kids in the back.  All this guys did, it try to move as many children as they can, before they move in building. That’s why almost all killed spetsnaz solders have bullet wounds at their back.

Quote[/b] ]On NBC, they interviewed two bros. and they talked about their experience. They had to drink their own pee because the water was turned off (by the terrorist?)

Water was not turned off. They just don’t let kids to drink it. They also stop them to visit toilet, after they find out, kids try to drink water there.

Quote[/b] ]Why bring a camera if you plan to blow up everything? They also tried to escape once the explosion occured.. I'm not saying that taking hostages is okay but I feel that this disaster could have been avoided if Russia would have played the cards right. It was a really touch situation for Russia as they could only loose whatever they decided to do. Negotiation was the only possible option to avoid bloodshed but Russia would never had given up anything to meet the terrorists demands.

Negotiation, exactly what they did for all this time. Alpha guys was 20 miles away from that school. I read they prepare ongoing operation using exactly the same school not far away (i quess other scholl very similar to one when hostages was helded, typical for small russian towns)

Quote[/b] ]That shouldn't be too hard when you fight an enemy you can't beat. Continuing a impossible fight is just stupid especially when to price is measured in civilian lives.

If Russian goal was to destroy Chechnya as enemy state, they can do it in 48 hours. Same for American in Iraq.

When peoples say “well, Middle East peoples can’t defeat invaders by military way, so they use every methods and chance they haveâ€

Wrong.

If they start to use any methods, SO DO WE.  There 500.000 peoples in Chechnya who don’t want to live outside the Russia, if 10.000 of them want to be separated, and they killing kids just to express their opinion,, they will die.

Russians very patience peoples, Osetins not. After 40 days from now, they will deal with f_heads in their own way.

[theavonlady 2]

I said back on the 1st or second day of the crisis that I didn't understand how every civilian was not evacuated from within a large perimeter area around the school.

We also saw the videos on TV this morning. Just sickening.

[CrackerJack 0]

Quote[/b] ]If Russian goal was to destroy Chechnya as enemy state, they can do it in 48 hours. Same for American in Iraq.

When peoples say “well, Middle East peoples can’t defeat invaders by military way, so they use every methods and chance they haveâ€

Wrong.

If they start to use any methods, SO DO WE. There 500.000 peoples in Chechnya who don’t want to live outside the Russia, if 10.000 of them want to be separated, and they killing kids just to express their opinion,, they will die.

Russians very patience peoples, Osetins not. After 40 days from now, they will deal with f_heads in their own way.

Ya sure, Russia can end it all, that´s why they been at it in 10 years and sent in waves of conscripts.

Well to you all who said to me: Are you stupid? You really think they gonna release that tape? Im just gonna say.. HA.... HA!

[Longinius 1]

Quote[/b] ]You know, I am not so sure the Russians did not play their cards right in this situation (unless I'm out of touch, possibly), it was really a screwup/coincidence that all this happened, and you can't blame starving/halucinating hostages for freaking out.

They might not have been able to avoid the final show down, but they sure as heck could have limited the carnage and chaos.

Like Avon pointed out, the area should have been evacuated and sealed of day one. They failed to do this in three days! There shouldnt have been any civilians even remotely near the area, and definately not any armed civilians.

Civilian aid workers or what not in stand-by, sure, but they were milling all over the place. Vehicles had access right up to the school. People were walking around, out of uniform, carrying AK-47's. Total chaos.

[Longinius 1]

Quote[/b] ]There´s rumour spreading that the incident wasn´t started by russian special forces but now they say that after the detonation they phoned with the terrorists and agreed on a cease fire.

Now starts the funny part. They say that fathers of pupils fired with their rifles from buildings around and started the firefight.

Excuse me ?

Not so sure I'd call it a rumor, its from a statement by Novaja Gazeta who was one of the key negotiators.

His version is that a bomb went of by mistake when the two medics were collecting bodies. This triggered some hostages to escape and a brief fire fight between terrorists and police / military. The negotiators then managed to get the terrorists to sieze fire briefly, but parents intermingled with anti-terrorist units continued to fire. This lead the terrorists to believe that the negotiators were lying and they were being stormed. So they blew all charges, so to speak.

[theavonlady 2]

His version is that a bomb went of by mistake when the two medics were collecting bodies.

I had heard the bodies were mined. Not true?

[Longinius 1]

Quote[/b] ]I had heard the bodies were mined. Not true?

I heard that to, but this guy didnt mention anything about that in the statement I saw. I think he was refering to one of the ceiling bombs inside the school, all though I fail to see the connection between the medics and the bomb (except that it happened at the same time).

[pogingwapo 0]

Anybody interested?

Details here

[theavonlady 2]

This looks final:

Quote[/b] ]Russia: Accidental Blast Led to Siege End

2 minutes ago

By JUDITH INGRAM, Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW - The militants who raided a school in southern Russia last week were led by a man dubbed the Colonel, who enforced obedience by killing three fellow attackers — two by detonating the explosives they had strapped to their bodies.

Two days later, the attackers were moving the explosives they rigged around the gym where hundreds of hostages were held, and a bomb went off accidentally. That began the spiral of panic that led to the bloody conclusion of the standoff, in which more than 320 people were killed.

.......................

More details in the full article.

[CrackerJack 0]

Basayev ?? Good luck hahaha. Even with one foot noone gonna capture him, he is a mujahedin and with that i meen he is going to kill him self rather then let get captured.

Plus... 10 milion? How can they afford it?

[SpongeBob 0]

http://www.mosnews.com/files/4115/picture1.jpg

Anybody interested?

Details here

I wonder if anybody teased him about his ears sticking out like that when he was a kid.  

[llauma 0]

Basayev ?? Good luck hahaha. Even with one foot noone gonna capture him, he is a mujahedin and with that i meen he is going to kill him self rather then let get captured.

Plus... 10 milion? How can they afford it?

You already answered the question..

[CrackerJack 0]

Killing him wont stop nothing, Putin just want´s him alive and not dead. Same thing with Saddam and Bush

[theavonlady 2]

http://www.mosnews.com/files/4115/picture1.jpg

Anybody interested?

Details here

I wonder if anybody teased him about his ears sticking out like that when he was a kid.  

They're not symmetrical. That explains everything.